While farming skeletons for bone chips a thought occurred to me. Maybe this has been done before and don't know or can't remember but have y'all ever played a game where your weapon type had an effect on the type of items that dropped from mobs?
For example, it seems to me like a crushing weapon should produce more bone chips than a piercing one. Or perhaps a slashing weapon would give you a piece of skin but a crushing one drops meat. I'm sure y'all can come up with a thousand ideas like this but you get the idea.
Not sure if this would be a pain in the ass or make or some interesting gameplay and maybe a little inter-dependency between players.
It's funny because when I read this post it reminded me of when I first started playing EQ. My first character was a High Elf Wizard, so when I was fighting mobs, naturally, I'm using my fire and cold spells when fighting. I noticed that when I killed the wolves, they always dropped ruined pelts. I thought it was because of the spells I was using. I was assuming that since I was casting these fire/cold spells on them, it was ruining their pelts, LOL. I thought that if they were killed a different way, they would drop a better quality pelt. I realized pretty quickly that this wasn’t the case. I learned that mobs would just drop random items regardless of how they were killed.
I like the idea that VR has talked about where different weapons will have different effects on different mobs. Like you may be fighting a mob that might be more susceptible to blunt damage, but not slashing damage. I’m not sure how I feel about it effecting loot drops though. What about if your group has one person using blunt weapons and another one using slashing weapons? Or one caster using fire spells and another using cold spells? How would that effect loot? Or if a group can’t agree on what weapon/spell types people should be using because they all want a different type of item to drop? I just don’t see how that could work.
Well that's true. How would it be handled in a group? I dunno. good point lol i do know that I wouldn't want to have that discussion at the start of each group. Or people harassing others because they aren't inflicting the right kind of damage.
Course it could just be *more likely* to drop certain items depending on damage type. Not an all or nothing proposition. Last hit determines it. I don't know exactly how it would work I'm just an idea man, I leave all the implementation to the geeks downstairs in programming!
Malsirian said:While farming skeletons for bone chips a thought occurred to me. Maybe this has been done before and don't know or can't remember but have y'all ever played a game where your weapon type had an effect on the type of items that dropped from mobs?
For example, it seems to me like a crushing weapon should produce more bone chips than a piercing one. Or perhaps a slashing weapon would give you a piece of skin but a crushing one drops meat. I'm sure y'all can come up with a thousand ideas like this but you get the idea.
Not sure if this would be a pain in the ass or make or some interesting gameplay and maybe a little inter-dependency between players.
I like the idea of promoting class interdepency, but this may verge on enforcing it a little too much. Unless, of course, the drops I want the most are the ones my class can give. Then it's a great idea, let's do it.
The more I think about this, the more I like it. At first, I think I actually said "Meh" out loud.
The issues:
- Different members in a group using different weapons
This could be a hassle, but it also promotes a number of extra collateral dynamics.
1. It makes skilling up different types of weapon types (1hs, 2hs, 1hb, 1hb, etc) that much more important. It's another form of horizontal progression. Leveling will take longer when much of your time is spent making sure you're able to use different weapon types. It's a "grind" with a purpose.
2. It promotes social interaction within the group, which is one of the core points in this MMO if I'm not mistaken. It damn near forces groups to talk, plan, coordinate.
3. It's another way for determining player reputation. Are you a player that will work with their group? Are you gonna be the jerk that hits those skeletons with a 2hb instead of a 1hb, causing less bone chips to fall? There could also be a rotation done, determined before hand by the group. Let's say 1hb causes bone chips to fall, but 1hs causes rib cages to fall intact, and different members in the group need both? You rotate weapon types after each drop. You coordinate. Groups last longer AND quests take longer to complete (assuming these are quest items, for example). Prices of these items go up. Economy is effected due to a lower supply.
4. Inventory matters more! I really like this effect. If you're forced to carry around different weapon types, or at least forced to make use of your bank space and visit it before every group, I think that's actually pretty cool.
5. Summoners! let's say you have a summoner and they can summon the group different temporary weapons. That just gave that class more use. I mean, let's be honest, how many times did we actually make use of the Magicians summoned items in EQ, aside from the occasional food/drink or bandages? This makes summoners matter more.
All in all, I think this a mechanic that makes me think of CR's and a lack of fast travel. It's a nuisance, a pain in the ass, and something that many people will find frustrating - but it's also a mechanic that'll make the game stand out. 15 years from now, we'll look back and think "Man, I sure wish MMO's still did corpse runs and had weapon types matter more like Pantheon did".
-Tralyan
Nice Tralyan! I um.. Had all of that in mind too. Yup! Sure did! :)
Actually one thing I was imagining was the possibility of guild organized material collection events. "Everyone who is interested in bone chips bring your crushing weapon and meet up in the graveyard on Wednesday night! If anyone needs rib cages take your 1hs and meet up with Tralyans group outside Thronefast. Our summoner will be there so if you don't have a 1hs, no worries!" Something along those lines anyway.
Thanks for the reply!
disposalist said:I would certainly be interested in mechanics that encourage you to be proficient in multiple weapons types. Good thoughts.
My concern is that we'd quickly get into balance issues. What about classes that don't melee? What about classes that only have 1 or 2 types of weapon? It's a cool idea that becomes another layer the devs have to iron out.
Krixus said:disposalist said:I would certainly be interested in mechanics that encourage you to be proficient in multiple weapons types. Good thoughts.
My concern is that we'd quickly get into balance issues. What about classes that don't melee? What about classes that only have 1 or 2 types of weapon? It's a cool idea that becomes another layer the devs have to iron out.
That's true, but there are ways around it, I feel. Let's take EQ as the example here. And please, correct my memory if I'm wrong.
You had all your melee classes that could do all kinds of weapon damage - except rogues couldn't do 2 handed weapons, and monks could not use piercing/slashing, right? Then you had your "arcane" casters that could use 1hP and 1hb/2hb blunt, while your wisdom based casters (shaman, cleric, etc) that could use blunt, but not piercing or slashing ...Is that correct so far?
I believe casters are fairly easy. In substitution for their lack of blunting or slashing, depending on the class, you could use spells. Match element types to weapon types.
Lightning = piercing
Fire = slashing
Ice = Slashing
Or for your wisdom based classes
Clerics "strike" spell would = Slashing base type
Just spitballing here.
Monks and rogues might be a little harder, and I suppose it depends entirely on their supplemental skills. Maybe for a monk, different punchs or kicks would equal slashing or piercing. Judo chop = Slash! For rogues? Uh ....Who knows.
The main 2 points I'd make are:
1. I think it's farily easy to assign spell types/skills to certain damage types. That doesn't really effect their damage or effectiveness, unless that particular mob is susceptible to a particular element (which adds a whole new layer of fun to this mechanic).
2. Either way, I'm all for PvE imbalance in classes. Granted, this is a horse of a different color when talking about balance and imbalance in classes. I concede that.
I suppose I can see how this might be a hassle to implement and may not be worth the devs time. I would argue, though, that if it was implemented that as far as balancing goes it wouldn't have quite as dramatic an effect as we might think. Purely conjecture on my part, of course.
-Tralyan
Or have casters influence the drops in entirely different ways. A fire spell might produce charred bone, frost spell maybe brittle bone, lightning maybe something like splintered bone. That could be carried over to all different types of mobs and it would create produceable resources unique to different classes. Have that as a requirement in some crafting recipes and it's a whole other sellable commodity.
I enjoy the idea as a intellectual exercise, but I dont see this being implemented due to the extra coding it would take on the loot tables lol. Not currently worth the time to code it when there is still so much to do at the moment. But I wouldnt be upset at all if they managed to get something like this in the game.